International Centre for Diffraction DataŽ
ICDD Profile > ICDD's Annual Spring Meetings Summary
17-21 March 2003
International Centre Headquarters
12 Campus Boulevard
Newtown Square, PA 19073-3273

ICDD's Annual Spring Meetings - also see 2003 March Meeting Schedule 

During the week of 17-21 March 2003, the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD) welcomed its members and guests to the headquarters office in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania for its Annual Spring Meetings. Our members play an essential role in the development of the ICDD, its database products, and educational services, tailoring those products and services to the needs of the global scientific community. In fulfilling this role, an international gathering of the ICDD members and affiliates, representing a wide range of scientific disciplines, participated in the various committee, subcommittee, and task group meetings held throughout the week (see schedule of events-link here). In addition, the ICDD Board of Directors met to discuss the financial, business, and long-range planning functions of the ICDD.

For the first time in the ICDD's history, a new meeting format was introduced to maximize member interactions. A Plenary session, a poster session, and a tour of historical Philadelphia were added to the typical meeting schedule. Based on attendee feedback, you'll be seeing more of this format in years to come!

The Plenary Session, held on Tuesday, 18 March 2003, was launched with a major announcement delivered by the Chairman, Cam Hubbard. In pursuing its long-term goal of supporting total pattern analysis, Cam announced a new collaborative agreement that was recently negotiated with Material Phases Data Systems (MPDS), distributors of the Linus Pauling File (LPF). This agreement will result in the incorporation of inorganic structural data (S-entry) from the LPF into the PDF-4 relational database, including atomic coordinates, crystallographic, and bibliographic data. Including this select LPF data will add new materials to the PDF database as well as provide complimentary atomic, crystallographic and bibliographic data to existing material sets. With integrated software, PDF-4 database users will be able to identify unknown materials and then quantitate the components by either the Reference Intensity Ratio (RIR) method or Rietveld methods. The first collaboration product, scheduled for 2005, will include the first 100,000 atomic coordinate data sets, visualization software, and enhanced digital pattern calculation into the PDF-4 database.
The Plenary Session, Advances in Automated Phase Identification, was chaired by Dr. Tim Fawcett. Leading experts in phase identification analysis discussed new technologies incorporated into today's integrated data analysis systems, and their expectations for the future.
The plenary speakers, along with the titles of their presentations, included:

• Next Generation Developments in PDF-4 Design: Search, Search-Indexing and Data-Mining
  John Faber, ICDD, Newtown Square, PA
• Phase Identification at the Push of a Button: A Dream Come True?
  Martijn Fransen, PANalytical, The Netherlands
• Phase Identification Using Electron Backscatter Diffraction and Crystallographic Databases
  Joseph Michael, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
• DIFFRACplus Search/Match
  Julien Nusinovici, Socabim, Paris, France
• Phase Identification Using Electron Back Scattering Patterns
  David Dingley, TSL-EDAX, United Kingdom
  

ICDD members and their spouses, families and guests stepped back in time to retrace the steps of one of the great scientists of all time, Benjamin Franklin, during a three-hour walking tour of historic Philadelphia. Participants experienced the life and times of Ben as they walked the same streets where Ben once walked. A guest appearance by Dr. Franklin culminated our journey through time.

Following the tour, a technical poster session, presenting a forum for members to discuss various interest areas and recent developments in X-ray diffraction, was held. The ICDD sponsored a mixer along with the poster session at the host hotel. Attendees enjoyed the fine food as well as the opportunity to network with peers. Watch for the publication of the poster abstracts in the June issue of Powder Diffraction.

The Technical Committee meeting on Thursday, 19 March 2003, served as a summary of all subcommittee activities and included reports by ICDD's Regional Co-chairs: Nubuo Ishizawa, East Pacific Rim; David Taylor, United Kingdom; James A. Kaduk, North America; Evgeny Antipov, Newly Independent States; Brian H. O'Connor, Indian Ocean Rim. The co-chairs reported on the activities, related to the ICDD and those of general interest to the X-ray analysis community, in their region. Results of global X-ray conferences, workshops and clinics were described as well as proposals for future activities in each region. The Technical Committee concluded with a presentation on "Transition Metal Oxides: Characterization and Energy Storage," given by Dr. W. Stanley Whittingham of the State University of New York at Binghamton, NY. Minutes of the individual meetings will be posted on this site as they become available.

The Annual Meeting of Members was also held on Thursday, where Cam Hubbard reviewed the Board of Directors' activities and its long range plans. Tim Fawcett, ICDD's Executive Director, discussed various Headquarters' activities. Other business included the approval of the amendment to Bylaws Article III, Section 3.7 (c) and (d), sent to the membership in January 2003; and reports of the Grant-in-Aid, Membership, Scholarship, and Technical Committees. As Treasurer, Julian Messick presented a report on the financial status of the organization, followed by Vic Buhrke, Chairman of the Denver X-ray Conference Organizing Committee, who reported on the Denver X-ray Conference, now in its 52nd year.

Several awards, recognizing the contributions of our Editors and Consulting Editors to the various PDF products, were announced and presented to those in attendance: